OCR Text

Lethbridge Herald (Newspaper) - March 26, 1971, Lethbridge, Alberta
EDITORIALS Joseph Kraft Israel moved by friendly persuasion} Young offenders act Debate on the federal govern-ment's proposed act respecting young offenders has been vigorous and extensive. It would not be surprising if many people are by now thoroughly confused by the debate. Division of opinion can be expected in the House of Commons and has certainly been in evidence with respect to this act. What has been corf-fusing is the division among the politically neutral, concerned people throughout the country. As an example of the opposition to the bill there is the widely-circulated indictment by the Canadian Mental Health Association. This, and other negative judgments made by persons prominent in the field of juvenile care, brought forth many calls for withdrawal of the bill. On the other hand, the bill also has its supporters. There is, for example, the Canadian Bar Association which has approved the legislation in principle. Instead of withdrawing the bill, it has been urged that amendments be made to sections that have caused doubts. The bill, of course, has not been withdrawn. Solicitor - General Jean-Pierre Goyer has consulted with many of the critics and he has indicated that he is ready to accept amendments during the committee stage of the bill's progress through the House. The central principle of the bill seems to be that the general offense of juvenile delinquency should be done away with in favor of a procedure under which young people will be charged with specific criminal offenses. Critics charge that this makes the bill a "junior criminal code" whereas the supporters say it is a "bill of rights for the young." There can be no doubt about the intention of the act. At the outset it is stated that the act is to be "liberally" construed. But whether the act will prove to be a "criminal code" or a "bill of rights" will probably depend largely on, the judges who administer it. WASHINGTON - Secretary " of State Rogers has a strong point when he says that Israel can achieve security better through political agreement than by territorial acquisition. But how does he make the Israelis believe it? One way, reflected in the Secretary's press conference, is to put public pressure on Israel to accept a package settlement now as the only alternative to the Third World War. But a far better way is to foster evolution of opinion in Jerusalem by a patient step-by-step address to the concrete issues that now divide Israel and the U n 11 e d States. , The reason for Israeli stubbornness on security questions is not in doubt. The nation bears as its' birthmark the trauma of the Nazi experience. For all its citizens, and especially for those in the highest office, the threat of annihilation is a living reality. Present circumstances touch Public pressure does work Who said public opinion doesn't count? Canadians from coast to coast, most of them mothers of pre-school children, wrote thousands of letters to the Canadian Radio Televison Commission protesting the possibility of the removal of the program Sesame Street from the airwaves next season. As a result of this public pressure, the CRTC has relaxed the Canadian content requirements to allow this program to continue. It has ordained that private stations affiliated with the CBC may exceed the commission's 35 per cent Canadian content limit for the specific purpose of carrying this one program. In return the CRTC should receive some fringe benefits from this decision in the nature of respect from the public at large. Parents don't particularly care whether or not a good children's program is part of CRTC's hallowed Canadian content. If the program is intelligent, educational as well as entertaining, as Sesame Street has proved to be, the average parent couldn't care if the program was imported from Timbuktu or points east. This move on the part of the CRTC should give heart to people who have long entertained the opinion that bureaucrats do not listen to the plaintive voices of protest from the lowly grass roots. The success of "K e e p Sesame Street" proves that sometimes opinions do get heard, provided they are loud and persistent. "Don't worry, this may be the last time you'll be in this position!" the security nerve on the raw in two places. First, there is the matter of borders. The Israelis have discovered in the past three years that their defense is more easily assured when they have control over Gaza and Sinai and Jerusalem and the Golan Heights than when they don't. They are being asked to abandon the most comfortable borders they have ever held. It is not easy. Second, there is the matter of guarantees. The Isrealis are being asked to turn over the strategic points to some vague,: uncertainly guaranteed United Nations force. Just such a force with just such guarantees took over sensitive places in the aftermath of the Suez war of 1956. That force and the guarantees behind it melted away in the events that precipitated the six-day war of 1967. Naturally, the Israelis are not eager to rest their destiny on such a frail structure once again. Despite these hang-ups, however, there has already been a considerable evolution in the Israeli . position. Prime Minister Golda Meir's government has accepted the basic UN Security Council resolution of 1967. It has forced out of the cabinet the right-wing extremists who advocate major territorial annexation. It has dealt with UN Ambassador Gunnar Jarring as a negotiating diplomat, not as a mere postman. It has welcomed the Egyptian offer of a "peace agreement." Even the vote of confidence given Mrs. Meir the other day in the Knesset or parliament represents �� kind of. concession. For the Israeli parliament' implicitly accepted as a basis for settlement the border arrangement laid out by Mrs. Meir in her interview with the London Times last week. And nothing that specific had previously been endorsed as a basis for settlement in Jerusalem. To be sure, Mrs. Meir is in-, sis ting on terms far away from the American stipulation for only "insubstantial" border changes. Among other things, she wants Israel to hold onto Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and Sharm el Sheikh overlooking the Strait of Tiran. But there is no reason to think that this has to be Israel's final position. The younger men rising in Israeli_politics behind Mrs. Meir - Defence Minister Moshe Dayan, Deputy Prime Minister Yigall Alton, and Foreign Minister Abba Eban - are all far more flexible than she is on the general proposition of living with the Arab states. In these circumstances, it makes no sense for the United States to go into a head-to-head confrontation with Israel in order to try to put across a package settlement now. Such a move would only cause the Israelis to dig in hard. Mrs. Meir would come on � stronger than ever, and the rest of the cabinet would have to r a 11 y round in a posture of intransigent resistance to American pressure. Once the idea of going for broke on a package settlement is cast aside, however, many substantive issues come up for genuine exploration. There is the matter of clearing the Suez Canal. There is the matter of guarantees for an international force to safeguard various sensitive points. There is the status of Jerusalem. Any one of those issues could be a vehicle for extensive dialogue between the American and Israeli diplomats. And in that way the momentum towards an eventual easing of tensions can be kept up. The basic fact is that there has been a favorable evolution up to now in all-quarters. Cairo does seem to want peace. The Sovi t Union has gone along with the government in Egypt'. The United States is prepared to underwrite a settlement that goes quite a way toward meeting Israel's security needs. Since the opportunity is serious, it deserves a serious diplomatic effort - not a slapdash grab for the mirage of instant settlement. (Field Enterprises, Inc.) Do away with vagrancy act Carl fowan Tucked away in the package of amendments to the Criminal Code being prepared by the justice department in Ottawa is the recommendation to kill Section 164 (1A) which makes it a crime to wander the streets without money. No doubt the Vagrancy Act served some purposes in certain areas of large cities where people with no money and .nothing to do tended to gang together to commiserate with each other, and therefore kept the police busy moving them to new locations. But when there are somewhere upwards of 700,000 people across the country unemployed and with empty pockets, more or less, because of certain actions of the government, it does seem rather mean, as a conse- quence, to nail them with a vagrancy charge. Most vagrants would prefer to work than wander the streets but economic conditions at present offer little hope of reducing the number who are at present roving from country to city, and from province to province. Then of course, there arises the question as to what constitutes a vagrant. There are.those itchy-feet wanderers who move from job to job, working whenever the spirit moves them, but if they have a dime in their pockets does this affluence separate them from those who may only possess two cents? ' It's time to be rid of "Vag.A," as it is referred to by officials, its ramifications not only rob people of their dignity but put them in the position of being criminals simply because they are poor. It's either all-out war or peace for Israel ITNITED NATIONS, N.Y. -^ It would be difficult to overstate the critical nature of the current situation in the Middle East. The delicate balance between war and peace is threatened by this set of developments: ' A searing dispute between the United States and Israel, over Israeli. withdrawal from captured territories and the demilitarization of the Sinai, has broken into the open. The Soviets and Arabs will be tempted to try to exploit U.S. - Israeli differences, and the dispute almost certainly will be intesified by American domestic politics and pressures. There is continuing disagreement between UN Secretary General U Thant and American officials about what kind of international military Letter to the editor force ought to guarantee any peace agreement that Israel and the Arabs can reach. Gunnar Jarring, the discreet, long - patient UN mediator, is described by friends as growing frustrated and disgusted by the all - around stubbornness and unreason. If he walked out, that would create a colossal challenge to U Thant to find a suitable replacement and would be a grim blow to hopes of soon achieving a peaceful settlement. In talks here and in Washington, the Israelis have made it clear that they want to keep strategic territories captured in the 1967 June war because they trust their own fighting abilities more than international s a f e-guards, even when the U.S. "guarantees" those safeguards. Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban is saying bluntly that while Israel can trust the present U.S. administration, future elections might put someone in the White House who would let the international safeguards fall apart. Jarring, Thant, and other UN officials are pointing out that if Americans elected a president who was that unsympathetic to Israel, the Jewish state could not survive anyhow, so Israel has no choice but to believe in and play ball with the U.S. Some UN officials observe that Israel's refusal to accept Secretary of State William Rogers's "pullback" proposal reflects domestic political pressures in Israel more than military logic. "In all disputes like this, if a pOR hollow ring, President Nixon's ap-peal to other nations to.jDin in a ban on germ warfare has to be the sugared doughnut of the year. The Soviet Union is expected to echo his plea. The image one gets is that of two big toughs, brandishing bicycle chains as they plead with a bunch of little kids to outlaw spitballing. Germ warfare is the smaller nation's equalizer. So long as the U.S. and Russia retain their nuclear clout,' it is imperative that a country like Canada, which cannot afford to stuff its silos with ICBMs should develop the terror that can be kept in a test-tube. Here we venture into the unthinkable. The U.S. has a clutch of eggheads housed at Princeton and paid handsomely to do nothing but think the unthinkable, mostly the Third World War. I am prepared to think the unthinkable, namely Canada threatened with armed invasion by the U.S. or Russia, and I think it free of charge. (I maintain an Institute for Advanced Studies in one corner of the bathroom, as a public service). Dammit, somebody has" to consider the long -, range effects of Canada's rapidly deteriorating relationship with the States. We Canadians have been nipping at the calves of the Friendly Giant for so long, while counting on him to protect us from large bears and other hostile bodies, that we take it for granted that he will never swat us into submission. Actually it is not as hard to think this unthinkable as-you might think (or have you already thought about it?) The U.S. is running low on a variety of natural resources that its yappy ward to the north has in abundance. Canada lies between tbe Pentagon and the Alaska oilfields, a security risk even though Canadians clap hands in delight every time a big tanker gums up the west coast. There is a precedent (the Bay of Pigs) for the U.S. manhandling a neighboring country that it considers to be a threat to its security. And the way Canada is getting on famously with Red China could build to justification enough for the Americans to step in and cut off our water. Faced with that menace, what could we do about it? Semaphore "Help!" to the British Navy, somewhere off Gibraltar? I have a pretty good' notion what the fleet will signal back. F-dle-d-dle. At the moment Canada's defensive posture in a world of nuclear power is little short of pathetic. Her only offensive weapon is John Ferguson, of the Montreal Cana-diens, and he may be traded to Los Angeles. We have sheltered so long in the shade of, first, H.M.S. Pinafore, and, latterly, good old MERV, that we take it as our God-given right to be inviolate though all we can shoot off is our mouth. An arsenal of bugs is nothing to rave about, either, but it is better than zilch. The purpose is deterrent, a doomsday weapon well suited to a nation with as much easily - crossed border as Canada shares with both the U.S.,and Russia. When Mr. Nixon and his fellow members of The Nuclear'Club get down to a ban or the big boys' bang, that on germ warfare can be thrown in as a makeweight. Meantime however his effort to discriminate against, small powers who are trying to get a piece of the action for Armageddon smacks of Princeton - where they are thinking, thinking, thinking all the time. (The Province Featura Service) Yearly clamor of teachers Once again we are hearing the yearly clamor of teachers and it appears that in addition to their salary demands they are now demanding the right to establish their own rules of employment, in other words bo their own bosses. It was also suggested recently by a local teacher, who frequently contributes rambling articles on education to the editorial column of The Herald, that teachers should be on school boards. This suggestion supposedly for the purpose of upgrading the level of education, would clearly be for the purpose of further enhancing the cozy situation of some, of these overpaid teachers. Years ago when teachers were interested in teaching and taught classes of 50 to 60 pupils, they were among the lowest paid segments of our economy, Day of romantic wanes By Don Oakley, NEA service IT'S getting harder and harder to be a romantic in the 20th century. In the course of renovating its castles to attract more tourists, the state of Hesse in West ' Germany has turned Frankenstein's castle into a hotel. The old castle, near Darmstadt dates back to 1252 and is where Baron Frankenstein, an early pioneer in transplant surgery, created his scary monster - at least in the novel by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Now, at a cost of $1 million, a restaurant, hotel rooms and conference rooms have been transplanted into the place where once mysterious bub-blings and blood - curdling screams echoed through dark and eerie corridors. Another castle famed in literature has been dealt with less kindly by the modern age. Tbe walls of the castle at Elsinore, Denmark, where Hamlet pondered whether to be or not to be, are reported to be crumbling from the effects of sulfur dioxide and other industrial pollutants in the air. So much for romanticism. 'Crazy Capers' but today thanks to their powerful and avaricious union (ATA) they have become the organized group with about the highest hourly rate of pay in the country, based on the number of hours including overtime, they are required to be on the job. And what other group receives 12 monthly pay cheques for a 9 month working period interspersed with numerous days off for conventions, meetings, etc.? What the ordinary homeowner, hundreds of whom are on a very limited or fixed income, would like to know is why the ATA is demanding exorbitant yearly increases in basic pay that are neither based on any suggested guidelines, nor on the cost of living. Perhaps a member with a yen for letter writing can tell us. In a recent petulant letter by a teacher in defence of various ATA demands, mention was made of salary increases to other tinions, the implication being, they got theirs, so what is wrong with us getting ours. This is hardly a logical reason from a member of a group which claims some semblance of professional status. Perhaps property owners generally should go on strike against paying taxes until there is some degree of reason in salary demands and if this happens municipalities will really be in trouble. settlement is not reached in reasonable time the hawks tend to gain more and more power. That has happened in Israel," one UN official told me. Part of Israel's problem is a 25-year-old unwillingness to allow any foreign peace - keeping troops on Israeli soil. The reluctance is intensified now because, for some reason, Washington goes along with a proposal that U.S. and Soviet forces be included in the peacekeeping contingent. U Thant has argued against this repeatedly, insisting that it will create more problems than it will solve to have troops of the two super - powers included. The Soviets moved with unbecoming haste to express their willingness to provide troops, heightening .Israeli fears of Soviet espionage and other double-dealings. Part of the quiet diplomacy that goes on here almost around the clock is to convince Israel that the Third World War hangs in the balance, and that Israel is not being offered a choice of peace or an international force. "Israel's choice is peace with an international guarantee or peace without an international force," one high - level official explained. He emphasized that Israel would get a guarantee that the peace force would remain at strategic locations for 15 or 20 years, with no removal except with the unanimous consent of the Security Council. Which means, in effect, that international troops would guarantee peace and security until both the U.S. and Russia agree that they could leave. But there are powerful forces in Israel that say "Sharm El Sheikh in hand, and trust no man." They want to cling to militarily strategic locations, relying really on nothing more than Israel's military prowess. What it means is that* simultaneously, both war and peace are closer than they have been in years. And the man who has negotiated this period of delicate decision is Jarring, who was eri-tizied for three years as being "too passive," and "nothing more than a mailbox." Jarring finally asserted himself with the recent peace proposals, this time causing Israeli critics to say that he "exceeded his mandate." Jarring has forced some Hard decisions on all the parties involved, but he has opened a path - admittedly risky - away from day-to-day brinkmanship. We shall soon know if he becomes one of the great peacemakers, or if he is forced to walk away, bitterly disillusioned. (Field Enterprises, Inc.) Looking backward Through the Herald 1921-Pound fees are to be raised to discourage owners from allowing their horses to roam at night, destroying lawns and boulevards in the city. 1931-For the first time in the history of Alberta, three men will be executed for murder in one day, June 10, at the Lethbridge jail. 1941-Five weeks after its introduction the largest money bill ever presented to a Cana- dian parliament, $1,300,000, passed the House of Commons. 1951-It was all over in less than half an hour, but while it lasted there was plenty of excitement. The ice in the Old-man River broke up with a loud roar and chunks of ice and mud made a jam for a short period before the ice ran out. 1961 - The Alberta legislature gave first reading to a bill which will permit all municipalities to tax pipelines and power lines for the first time. The Lethbridge Herald 504 7th St. S., Lethbridge, Alberta LETHBRIDGE HERALD CO. LTD., Proprietors and Publisbert PubUshed 1905-1954, by Hon. W. A. BUCHANAN Second Class Mall Registration No. 0012 Member of The Canadian Press and the Canadian Dally Newspaper Publishers' Association and the Audit Bureau of Circulation* CLEO W. MOWERS, Editor and Publisher THOMAS H. ADAMS, General Manager Lethbridge. "ANTI-GREED" JOE BALLA Managing Editor ROY F. MILES Advertising Manager WILLIAM HAY Associate Editor DOUGLAS K. WALKER Editorial Page Editor "THE HERALD SERVES THE SOUTH"
;